On Feb. 27, FinCEN posted the following “News” to its Beneficial Ownership Information webpage:
WASHINGTON––Today, FinCEN announced that it will not issue any fines or penalties or take any other enforcement actions against any companies based on any failure to file or update beneficial ownership information (BOI) reports pursuant to the Corporate Transparency Act by the current deadlines. No fines or penalties will be issued, and no enforcement actions will be taken, until a forthcoming interim final rule becomes effective and the new relevant due dates in the interim final rule have passed. This announcement continues Treasury’s commitment to reducing regulatory burden on businesses, as well as prioritizing under the Corporate Transparency Act reporting of BOI for those entities that pose the most significant law enforcement and national security risks.
No later than March 21, 2025, FinCEN intends to issue an interim final rule that extends BOI reporting deadlines, recognizing the need to provide new guidance and clarity as quickly as possible, while ensuring that BOI that is highly useful to important national security, intelligence, and law enforcement activities is reported.
FinCEN also intends to solicit public comment on potential revisions to existing BOI reporting requirements. FinCEN will consider those comments as part of a notice of proposed rulemaking anticipated to be issued later this year to minimize burden on small businesses while ensuring that BOI is highly useful to important national security, intelligence, and law enforcement activities, as well to determine what, if any, modifications to the deadlines referenced here should be considered.
For a summary of the previous back-and-forth court orders and administrative announcements, please refer to our Feb. 20 article.
We understand that this information may be important to many of our clients. As we have indicated previously, BOI reporting obligations are outside the purview of services that CBIZ is authorized to provide. This article is not intended to provide any legal advice. We encourage you to contact your legal counsel to ascertain whether your company will be subject to BOI reporting obligations and how this latest development will affect your company.
If we can provide further clarification to you on these matters, please connect with us.
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